Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I've been a bit down of late on my performance in dungeons. My team is doing splendidly and the 3.0.2 patch really helped us perform better and see things we couldn't before. As a whole I would say I'm pro-patch because of the boost it gave us as a team.

My problem is more focused on my personal performance. When I picked my spec, I tried it out on a couple heroics and saw I could still kill things quickly and contributed well to the success of the 5-man and thought I'd done well. I do not get this same feeling with the 10-man.

Part of this could be ego and I'm not denying it. I worked hard to earn the items I have and to go from being first or second on DPS lists to 5th is depressing. Last night I barely beat out our Paladin tank for damage and that's just wrong. At least he's not just hitting hard, he's keeping attention of the monster. My only job is to damage things and I'm only doing a marginally better. I think I'm doing something wrong.

I am currently full Arcane, see my armory listing for reference. I'm rotating spells in a Arcane Blast > Arcane Missile > Arcane Barrage type fashion. I'm making use of Missile Barrage whenever I see it proc. I thought I had a rotation that was working well for me but I'm just not pumping out the numbers like I used to. I know everything is changed but with the patch that made everyone "over-powered" I feel a little nerfed and realize I must of made a wrong turn somewhere.

I've tried deep frost before and I'm just too much of a ditz to use that with any success. I constantly forget to use my pet. Stupid I know but I do. To keep it simple I just opted to not give myself that frustration. I'm willing to put a sticky note in the middle of my screen to remind me if this spec is any better.

I've never specced for fire and am really sort of clueless of how to use it. I guess out of laziness I decided to skip this line. I'm willing to learn.

Now I'm just staring at my DPS and bemoaning the days when I could do so much more. I need to make a change. I'm not a theorycrafter. All these sites that go over every decimal point of damage just confuses me. I just want to be able to feel like I do damage again. I don't need to be #1 on any dps chart. I just need to be able to look at it and say "Hey that's not bad!" Being better than the tank would be a plus.

So if any of you mage smarties out there has some advice for me, I'm all ears. Leave me a comment. Shoot me an email. Link me your post that shows me the light! I want it all!

4 comments:

NotYourMommy
said...

I don't have a mage at 70 yet (at 30 and getting there fast heheh). But I can tell you this much:

my guild friend has a 70 undead mage that he just respecced to arcane from frost and he loves the amount of dps. The only complaint he has is the increased amount of mana used for the spells. Here is his armory sheet.He is deep arcane as you can see, but I hope this clarifies or helps =)I also heard that there are dummies you can practice against in the major cities. Levels are 60/70/80.Pick a level 70 and watch your dps with different specs/gear/rotation and find the best combination =)

I tried out arcane for a few minutes, testing it out on several dummies in Ironforge.

I really like the crit numbers, and I really LOVE the graphics of Missile Barrage when it procs. I just feel that the DPS is really hit-or-miss with me. Some rounds, I'll be way over my normal Frost rotation average, but in others I'm wayy under.

I use a Arcane Blast->Arcane Barrage rotation with Arcane Missiles during MB procs, and Arcane Blast during Clearcasting procs. Don't forget your mage armor and PoM glyphs! They really help out.

My first raid as fire 0/50/11 was utterly depressing, dps-wise. The problem was that the raid went so quickly that everything was burned down before I had the chance to cast a 3 sec fireball..

I haven't given it up entirely yet though. I did some testing on the dummies in IF and it didn't look that bad. It depends on what kind of fights you're up to I guess. Fire shines more if you'll have a longer fight imo.

The rotation if you want this kind of spec isn't hard. It's basically the old one with scorching up to 5 debuffs (goes quicker now with the glyph) and then fireballs. Whenever hot streak procs you hurl off an instant pyroblast, provided you're ok on the threatlist with it.

As an ex arcane going fire I have to regem my gear and desperately chase for hitrating, a stat I didn't have to worry about before the patch... It isn't fun to miss the mobs.

Greetings and well met! I am Desdarii, a Draenei Mage from the Blackwater Raiders Realm (RP). This is where I describe my adventures through Azeroth with my husband Gabi and post the stories of my past. You are most welcome here. Please, sit a while and enjoy my tales.